Environment What do we make of changes we’ve made to improve the environment?

Fine. Believe what you want. I don’t understand why you disregard the extract I provided, unless it is because it contradicted your position.

Since you seem partial to newspapers, here is another one for you (google remains your friend)
https://www.sfchronicle.com/science...ngerprints-of-climate-change-all-13128585.php

Please note, the article says climate change may have an effect, but more importantly it refs some peer reviewed studies.

I certainly don’t think, and never said warming temps were solely to blame. But going back to Ockham...more heat, dryer fuel, bigger fire.

And in case it was hard to follow, I never implied these fires were combusting, simultaneously due to climate change or anything else. Some of the comments seem to think this was the case, it is not.

 

Wonder what forest fires were like during the Climate Optimum, the Medieval Warm Period and the Dust Bowl period in the US.

 

What about coastal erosion? Louisiana is losing miles of land every year due to what people have done. First, the levees kept the Mississippi River from overflowing and directed the flow so that instead of building new land and barrier islands the land building materials are deposited far offshore into waters too deep to build up land. That has been happening since the 1700s.

Then in the 20th century the oil companies dug canals all over the marshland, further damaging the estuary.

We are destroying the breeding grounds of the largest source of seafood in the USA.

 

It's called progress people have to live and work. However it was indiscriminate for a while but now the oil companies and government have adjusted and the marslands are not leveed off as before there are breaks in the levee's that allow the waters to ebb and flow needed to keep the marshlands productive.

 

I’m not so sure GDF. Face it the worst ecological disasters have happened in the Soviet Union and as you say China. There the absolutist state controlled everything and had no incentive to clean things up as they reported to no one.
Give credit to the environmental/conservationists and the fact that we have a free press. Also give credit to Industry and business. They have accepted and adopted much more willingly than you give them credit. Again I have been working in the oil and petrochemical Industry for over 40 years and have seen the acceptance and insistence on following the rules. The changes are amazing

 

Of course if the levees had built with today's technology and accumulated knowledge about how the whole river ecosystems function they could have designed them to prevent what happened. Can't blame the early builders for not knowing. They just wanted to build their homes and grow their crops without the danger of being flooded.

I would thing that nowdays the whole thing could be redesigned to both let the natural forces of nature rebuild the coastline as well as protect the property and industry presently lineing the river.

The problem is that such a solution would cost hundreds of billions of dollars if not trillions. I don't know if anybody outside of the gulf coastal states gives a shit. It's not something that Louisiana can do alone.

 

Read “Rising Tide”. It’s a book about the Mississippi River Commission and the 1927 flood. The reason why the levee system was built as it was is due to the jealousy of one man. It’s a long story but worthwhile.
You’re right the cost of change would be prohibitive. Mainly because so many entrenched interests want thing to stay as they are.

 

Timely WAPO item on Cali Wildfires. Hope you can see it without a subscription.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/amp-stories/humans-have-made-wildfires-worse-heres-how/?hpid=hp_hp-visual-stories-desktop_no-name:homepage/story

“There aren’t enough people in the U.S. Army to stop a fire like that.”

 

The thing that worries me the most is the lack of concern energy companies and oil and gas companies have regarding our clean water and underground water supplies and food. I think we are being poisoned and I’m not sure if these companies know or even care.